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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615370">Spat Back Teeth And Bone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/pseuds/vachtar'>vachtar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>An Abundance Of Boundary Violations, M/M, The Lonely - Freeform, Unwanted Gifts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:54:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/pseuds/vachtar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter has ideas about how his new assistant should dress. Martin protests, for a while.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Peter Lukas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Spat Back Teeth And Bone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was initially written for Peter/Martin Week day 5: gift | boundaries, but I got steamrolled by real life so it’s late. But I liked it enough to finish and post, so here’s a couple thousand words of Peter negging Martin over his clothing; whatever passes for romance amongst Lonely bastards, I guess.</p><p>Title from In All My Dreams I Drown from The Devil’s Carnival.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The garment bag lies in a crisp drape over his desk when Martin arrives at the office in the morning.</p><p>He pauses, rain jacket half-off his shoulders. The bag doesn’t move - not that he expected it to, but they can’t exactly be too careful these days. It’s plain and navy blue, with a neat zipper up the front. Two steps closer and he can see a blunt monogrammed ‘L’ over about where the breast pocket would be. Right.</p><p>He hangs his damp jacket over the back of his chair to dry and sets his backpack down beside the desk, and then runs out of things to do without addressing it, so he turns to the bag again. His fingers inch toward the zipper for a moment, and then he lets out an explosive breath and grabs the whole thing, none too gently, and drops it in the corner on top of a cardboard box holding a set of dishes that might be instruments of the Slaughter or might just be spectacularly tackily floral. The blood chipped onto the edge of the teacups could go either way.</p><p>Martin swings his chair out and collapses into it. The battered wood groans under his weight and his elbow knocks into the side of his desk, sending spasms up his arm and making him yelp and rub at it before turning back to his laptop screen. </p><p>He doesn’t know what’s in the garment bag, but it felt heavy; thick, fine fabric, probably a suit. Judging by the bag, something the sort of expensive Martin’s never in his life rubbed elbows with, the kind of thing that doesn’t need to flaunt labels and gaudy embellishments to demonstrate its price. Probably getting creased to hell and back in the pile he left it in.</p><p>It’s not the most productive morning he’s ever had; he keeps getting distracted by noises out in the hall, the squeal of wet shoes on the floor, murmurs of conversation. His hair got soaked in the rain and it itches as it dries, bits clinging to the back of his neck and dribbling water down his collar. By the time he’s ground through the most urgent stack of emails in his inbox, it’s early afternoon and, he supposes, time for a break. </p><p>He’s halfway to the door when he sighs and turns back to hang the garment bag, no worse for wear after its morning, on the back of his chair. He pointedly doesn’t look at it when he closes the door behind him.</p>
<hr/><p>“Was it the color, or the style?”</p><p>“Hmm.” Martin doesn’t look up from his screen. His gut still clenches uneasily whenever Peter drops in from nowhere, but he’s at least gotten a handle on his visible reactions. It was one of the first things he’d done after his promotion; Peter takes entirely too much delight in spooking him like an animal.</p><p>“I did consider green, but it’s not really your shade, now is it? And it certainly isn’t mine. But I’d have thought you’d like the cut, at least.” Peter leans against Martin’s desk and manages to loom cheerfully. At least he’s abandoned the heavy raincoat, and his captain’s hat is hanging on the peg in Elias’s office. In his sturdy boots and a sweater that probably costs more than Martin’s flat, he nearly looks like a normal eccentric millionaire.</p><p>“I wouldn’t know. Didn’t look at it.” Martin flicks his eyes back to his laptop. </p><p>Peter picks up the apple Martin’d left sitting on his desk for later and takes a bite, crunching merrily and peering at Martin’s screen with the sort of bright interest Martin’s determined means ‘I know fuck-all about what you’re doing and I don’t care to learn’. “Well! That’s a poor way to treat a gift. Why not? It’s nicer than anything you have right now, even with your newly enhanced rate of compensation.”</p><p>“Because I’m not looking for - charity, or whatever this is.” Martin says. His fingers tense over his keyboard and he’s abruptly, piercingly aware of Peter’s presence, the uncomfortable closeness of him.</p><p>“Mm. I see. Would it help if you considered it a selfish gift? Really, what will people think if they see my assistant dressed like - well. Like this.” Peter waves the hand not still holding the apple in Martin’s general direction; Martin’s shoulders shrink in on themselves involuntarily. His trousers are from a charity shop and he’s been wearing them long enough the fabric is wearing out around the shape of his phone in his pocket. The shirt at least he bought new, but it doesn’t quite fit him, pinching at the waist and loose around the collar. He looked fine to himself in the morning, but now he feels unbearably frayed.</p><p>“My clothing is in compliance with the dress code,” he grits out anyway, reveling in the moments of contrariness where he can still scrounge them up.</p><p>“Oh I’m sure it is! Rather shabby compliance, though. At least try it on next time, will you? There’s a good lad.” Peter pats at his shoulder and sets the apple back on Martin’s desk. By the time Martin’s pried his eyes open and unknotted his hands, Peter’s gone. The apple gleams with spit and it’s already starting to brown on the exposed inside. When Martin takes a bite out of it himself, it tastes of nothing, and crumbles into mush on his tongue.</p>
<hr/><p>Martin’s flat is cold; it usually is, shitty heating and poor insulation and it still smells vaguely of the curry he’d burnt two days ago, to boot. He drops his bag and jacket on the floor just inside the door and checks his watch in the gloom.</p><p>It’s late; he’d pieced together two pieces of a lead Peter’d mentioned the week previous, and ended up staying hours past everyone else, rummaging through a box of newsprint trying to cross-reference train timetables from the 1980s. In the end it’d gotten him no closer to the Extinction, only a headache from squinting through his glasses that long, and he’d almost planned to just stay at the Archives but he’d gotten half a step into the room with the cot, saw Jon’s abandoned toothbrush lying still on the shelf, and turned tail to flee.</p><p>At least the train wasn’t crowded. He’d had nearly the whole car to himself, free from the seething mass of humanity aside from an old woman nodding off towards the front. And his building is quiet enough he can pretend it’s not jammed full of people either. He strips in the bathroom and sinks gratefully under the heat of the shower, the one appliance in his flat that does generally work, and rinses the day out of his hair.</p><p>He stays under the spray longer than he really needs, dreading the chill of the apartment when he gets out, but eventually the water starts to prune his fingers and his eyelids are growing too heavy to ignore. He curses under his breath and grumbles to his past self about not bringing clean clothes into the bathroom with him, and nearly drops the towel around his waist when he flicks the light on in his bedroom.</p><p>Draped across the bed is a pair of pajamas, nicer than anything Martin’s ever owned. The pale blue fabric has a slight sheen to it that makes him think it must be silky to the touch. His initials are embroidered over the breast pocket of the shirt. It looks like something laid out for a corpse.</p><p>He stares at the bed for an impossible number of seconds with his hand still on the light switch. Now that he’s looking for it, there’s a vague ozone-trace of saltwater in the air. Hysterically, he glances around the room, but there’s no sign Peter’s there now. Martin is alone in his flat, feeling terribly damp and unimpressive.</p><p>Finally he wills himself to move. He turns his back on the bed and dresses quickly in a threadbare shirt and old joggers. It’s pure stupid fantasy to think the pajamas are somehow watching him and <i>judging him</i>, so he very carefully does not think that. Must be the leftover heat from his shower, making his head fuzzy and disoriented.</p><p>When he looks back at the bed, the pajamas have, of course, not moved. He bundles them into a pile and shoves that onto the floor by the window, drops his glasses onto the nightstand, and crawls under his duvet. His wet hair stains the pillowcase. </p><p>Despite the exhaustion, his mind refuses to settle. It’s been awhile since he visited the hospital; maybe that’s it. It’s the guilt, he decides vaguely, and forces his eyes shut. It takes a long time for him to drop off into sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>On a blustery morning, it’s not until he steps out onto the street that he realizes the scarf is the wrong shade of grey. It slides between his fingers, fine, warm fabric, and his thumb brushes over the label tucked into a fold. Martin hesitates a long moment before he tugs it off and drops it into a puddle.</p>
<hr/><p>Martin sucks in a harsh breath and lets it shake out, trying to steady himself. Difficult, when Peter’s broad hands are clutching bruises into his hips and Peter’s thick cock is splitting him open. The desk is at least immobile and silent, too heavy even for two crashing bodies to shift it. A small mercy.</p><p>“Oh, yes,” Peter groans, wrenching Martin out of his distraction. The firm, even drag over his prostate makes Martin’s knees buckle a little, and Peter adjusts his grip an inch and ruts deeper. Christ, Martin’s close; his cock throbs where it’s pressed between his belly and the wood of the desk, and his balls ache, and his head swims.</p><p>A hand paws up his side, settles over his spine and presses him down harder. The extra space between their bodies makes Martin shudder and his cock pulses. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets the orgasm wrack through his limbs until he’s drained and limp on Elias’s old desk, panting quietly and feeling his cold breaths puff against the wood.</p><p>It’s only a few moments and a handful of thrusts more before Peter spills inside him, with a pleasant moan. He pats at Martin’s flank, as one might congratulate a particularly talented pet, and slides out. The space inside Martin feels empty, even though he’s probably dripping with come. The thought makes him wince and his cock twitch simultaneously.</p><p>When he manages to push himself to his shaking feet, his own come is smeared over the surface of the desk and the shape of his belly. His stomach flips; he’s going to have to go about the rest of his day like this, with the ghost of Peter’s hands on him, and his own sweat dampening the hair at the nape of his neck, and the evidence of his <i>relationship</i> with Peter clinging to his skin.</p><p>“I should’ve picked up an assistant earlier,” Peter hums from behind. “All kinds of benefits I was missing out on.” He turns Martin around with brusque hands and wipes the desk clean with a lump of fabric. Martin shifts aside to give him room and busies himself with cleaning his glasses on his trousers and steadying the tremble in his hands. The fabric in Peter’s hand swipes over Martin’s stomach a second later, and it’s only then he realizes it’s his shirt.</p><p>“Peter,” he hisses. “I need to <i>wear that</i>.”</p><p>“My mistake.” Peter unfolds the fabric, entirely unrepentant. Too late now; it’s smeared with come right across the front. “Not to worry, I’m sure I’ve got a spare around here somewhere.”</p><p>He tugs open the bottom drawer of the desk with his foot and pulls out a clean shirt, folded haphazardly. The fabric is soft and bright and he holds it up against Martin’s chest as if he’s measuring it. </p><p>“That should do,” says Peter. The shirt is clearly not Peter's size, and clearly unworn. Martin’s fingers graze the fabric for a moment. He’s tempted; of course he’s tempted. Today’s been shit, and he feels wrung out and used, and his whole being itches to take the little bit of comfort being offered him. The shirt shifts, tantalizingly, brushing his stomach.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Really? Much as I might enjoy it, I don’t think my assistant running around half-nude is covered by the dress code.”</p><p>“It’s fine, I’ve got - my jumper’s still clean.” He grabs it off the floor and shakes the dust off. There’s half a bootprint on the sleeve where Peter was apparently standing on it while they fucked. Martin shrugs it on anyway, knocking his glasses crooked in the process. Peter just smiles and leaves the clean shirt tossed across his desk alongside the dirty one.</p><p>The coarse knit of his jumper itches against his bare skin for the rest of the day.</p>
<hr/><p>In the mornings, Martin can’t get warm anymore. He shivers under his duvet until his phone beeps an alarm to remind him he’ll be late for work if he doesn’t get up, and then he spends another ten minutes convincing himself missing work entirely is a bad idea, and then he finally, forcefully bundles himself out of bed. The floor is cold under his feet and his teeth chatter as he fumbles open the dresser drawer. </p><p>On top of his t-shirts is a jumper he’s never seen before, but of course he’s seen its like dozens of times on Peter’s broad frame. This one is a washed-out navy, a pleasantly warm weight for winter. No gaudy monograms, no signs of eldritch tampering. It doesn’t even smell like Peter when he picks it up, just the inside of an upscale store. He sets it aside and pulls out clothes for the day.</p><p>Halfway through a piece of undercooked toast, he’s still shivering. He thinks he’ll grab another layer, maybe a sweatshirt. In his bedroom, he doesn’t think about it until he’s got the jumper halfway down his stomach. </p><p>He doesn’t hesitate, this time. The jumper fits perfectly, obviously it does, and maybe it alleviates the chill in his bones; he finds it hard to tell, with it on.</p><p>He’s not late for work, but it’s a near thing. It’s fine. Peter comes and goes as he pleases, and gives no indication that he expects punctuality out of Martin. Most of the staff are already in their places when he arrives, and the building is as quiet as a monolith crammed full of people can manage. The stairway to the Archives echoes, muffled, as he makes his way down.</p><p>Downstairs, Melanie crouches on the balls of her feet. She’s holding a boxcutter in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. The bags under her eyes are sunk deeper than Martin remembers and her hair is unbrushed, knotting above thin shoulders. </p><p>“Are you okay?” he asks, belated. She stares at the wall opposite and doesn’t acknowledge him, even when he steps in front of her. The jumper shifts, a quiet rustle of fabric against itself as he moves. Melanie just rocks slightly and stares at the door to Elias’s old office. </p><p>“Melanie, are you okay?” No response. No flicker of the eyes in acknowledgement. Nothing to prove he’s even there.</p><p>Finally she swears loudly, and pushes to her feet. The door to the office remains closed. Whatever personal ritual she’d been fixated on, she abandons, stalking down the hall and out of his sight.</p><p>It’s only after she’s long gone that the door clicks open and Peter pokes his head out into the hall. His eyes land on Martin and he smiles benevolently.</p><p>“Ah! I see you got my gift. Dressing appropriately for the office is so important,” Peter says. He steps too close.</p><p>His hand wraps around the back of Martin’s neck, and his thumb slips between the knit fabric and Martin’s skin. It brushes cold and soft against his slowed pulse. Martin doesn’t lean into the touch; Martin doesn’t pull away.</p><p>“I’m so proud of you.”</p>
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